Sage Sankara’ regards personal realization as independent and convincing evidence.+

Sage Sankara regards personal realization as independent and convincing evidence.  

Sage Sankara says that an individual’s experience cannot be disputed because the experience he went through was real to him; though that may not be real from the absolute point of view.

Sage Sankara makes a distinction between the nondualistic view and the dualistic view of the worldview.

Sage Sankara says: ~ Atman is Brahman. The Atman alone is real is not religious truth.   Sage Sankara declared this Advaitic truth, which is the ultimate truth to the whole world, many centuries back is the rational truth, scientific truth, and ultimate truth. 

Sage Sankara’s wisdom is nothing to do with religion and yoga. There are two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know the truth beyond form, time, and space. Religion and yoga are meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. The Sage Sankara’s Advaitic wisdom, with its emphasis on the Advaitic wisdom, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.

Without Sage Sankara, there is no Advaita. Without Advaita, it is impossible to realize the truth, which is beyond form, time, and space.

Sage Sankara’s whole wisdom can be summed up in one sentence, ‘There is nothing else but Brahman. He says that Absolute Existence, Absolute Knowledge, and Absolute Bliss are real. The universe is not real. He says that Brahma and Atman are one. The ultimate and Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one, though appearing as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the Self is real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances. 

The ultimate truth must be independent of religion, that in Sage Sankara himself the Saguna Brahman or a personal God is only a part of the phenomenal (if not illusory) world, and the Nirguna Brahman is the only reality and has nothing to do with religion.  

Sage  Sankara pokes fun at ascetics and points out that all their austerities do not cause desires to go. (Altar Flowers" Page 205, v.2 P.207 v.4)

The Nirguna Brahman  (God) of Sage Sankara is impersonal.

Nirguna (without Gunas or attributes),

Nirakara (formless),

Nirvisesha (without special characteristics),

 immutable, eternal, and Akarta (non-agent).

It is above all needs and desires. It is always the Witnessing Subject.

It can never become an object as it is beyond the reach of the senses.

Brahman is non-dual, one without a second.

 It has no other besides it. It is destitute of difference, either external or internal.

Brahman cannot be described because the description implies a distinction.

Brahman cannot be distinguished from any other than It. In Brahman, there is not distinction between substance and attribute.

Sat-Chit-Ananda constitutes the very essence or Svarupa of Brahman, and not just Its attributes.

The religion of the Veda knows no idols. All the idols worshipped as God s are non-Vedic God s. If idols are of the non-Vedic God s   then why so many Gods and   Goddesses with different forms and names are being propagated as Vedic God s. Why these conceptual Gods are introduced when the Vedic concept of God is free from form and attributes.

Sage Sankara: ~ VC-  Let erudite scholars quote all the scripture, let God be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal God s be propitiated---yet, without the realization of one‘s identity with the Self, there shall be no liberation for the individual, not  even in the lifetimes of a hundred Brahmas put together (verses-6)

Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the  Self. May ye never accept another God  in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)

So, Rig Veda clearly says that God is Atman, and never to accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman.   Then why worship any other God in place of the Atman, the real God.

Rig Veda: ~ 'Prajnanam Brahma'- Consciousness is the ultimate reality or Brahman or God in truth.

God in truth is the Atman, the Self. Atman is present in the form of consciousness.

Do not accept any other God other than Atman not worship other than Atman.

Let these words be inscribed in your subconscious.

Nothing is real but God. Nothing Matters but love for God in truth. God in truth is everywhere and in everything.

God in truth is hidden by the illusory universe. God in truth alone is and all else is an illusion

God and Goddesses worshipped in India today are non-Vedic Gods.   Such Gods and Goddesses cease to exist without the dualistic illusion. Whatever belongs to the dualistic illusion is bound to be an illusion.

Remember:~

Bhagavad Gita: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham ~ Brahman (God in truth ) is considered the all-pervading consciousness (Spirit), which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (14.27).

When Bhagavad Gita says, God is considered the all-pervading consciousness (Spirit) which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness. 

Lord Krishna Says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the 'Self' in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.

The dualistic worship of "God” is only for the ignorant populace. The God in truth is only Atman, the Self.   In reality, there is no duality, no differentiation. Only Atman exists.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God ) is the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.

Yajurveda – chapter- 32:~   God is  Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions. Thus,   Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas.

Yajurveda says God is Supreme Spirit and has no idol or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions. 

Thus,   Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas. Therefore, why worship God s when they cease to exist without the dualistic illusion.

This clearly indicates Vedic God is Atman, the  Self.   Thus, ‘‘Self’’-realization is God-realization. ‘‘Self’’-realization itself is real worship.

Sage Sankara says: ~ Ataman is Brahman. Thus, the Soul the innermost ‘‘‘Self’’’ is God. Therefore,    all the Gods with form and attributes are merely imaginations based on the false ‘‘Self’’.  Thus, there is adulteration and add-ons in the past, which have to be bifurcated if one wants pure Vedic essence.  

Yajurveda says they sink deeper into darkness those who worship what is not God: ~ 

Yajurveda:~

Translation 1.

They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc). 

They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.) (Yajurveda 40:9)

Translation 2.

"Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent." (Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Giffith pg 538)

Translation 3.

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God  are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajur Veda 40:9.)

So, Yajur Veda indicates that: ~

They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created thing that is matter.

Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, that is the  matter  in place of  Spirit, which is God in truth  are enveloped in ignorance s, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly experiencing the illusory world as reality." 

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God in truth ) is in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.

Worshipping of the non-Vedic God s will not yield any fruit.  The Veda and Upanishads confirm God is Atman (spirit), the Self’. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar